Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes has spent 93 (nonconsecutive) weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. That’s getting close to TWO YEARS! And now, international acclaim. (I have a copy in Japanese at home.) For a cat, that’s quite a paw.

(One of my favorite Portuguese titles is O Diário de um Banana, with “banana” being slang for “wimpy kid.”)

Ms. Roberts appeared at Davis Academy in February to promote her new Founding Mothers picture book, which is excellent. Little Shop sold books at the event. She was terrific: insightful, thoughtful, witty, and generous with her time.

This seems as good a place as any to ask what happened between Eric Litwin and James Dean. Is it common knowledge? We saw Eric Litwin perform at Shallowford Presbyterian Church late last year. He made it very clear that he was not involved with the new Pete the Cat books (which are written by Kimberly and James Dean). His apparent bitterness diminished the show, in my opinion. Fortunately my preschooler didn’t seem to notice.

Eric and James have gone their separate ways. James is continuing the Pete the Cat book franchise and has illustrated a book by Joan Holub called Mighty Dads, due out April 29th. Eric has a fabulous new picture book, The Nuts: Bedtime at the Nut House, coming out during the summer.

Kate was at Little Shop Saturday night. She gave an interesting talk and is extremely personable — not surprising to those of us who hear her regularly on WABE. Pretty much every group of individuals who attended purchased at least one copy.